Benedict Cumberbatch, Jake Gyllenhaal to topline “The Current War”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Jake Gyllenhaal and Benedict Cumberbatch are in talks to star as George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison, respectively, in The Weinstein Co.'s The Current War, The Hollywood Reporter reveals.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon is in discussions to helm the Edison-Westinghouse-feud film that was penned by playwright-screenwriter Michael Mitnick (The Giver), whose script made the Black List in 2011. The plan is for Gomez-Rejon to make Current War his next film after directing the Will Smith starrer Collateral Beauty, which will shoot in the fall. Also this fall, Gyllenhaal is shooting Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals.

Current War takes place in the late 1880s and revolves around power titans Edison and Westinghouse's battle over the supply of electricity. Edison championed direct current (DC) for electric-power distribution over alternating current (AC), which was backed by several European companies and Westinghouse Electric.

TWC will finance Current War and release it domestically.

Gomez-Rejon became a hot commodity after directing this year's Sundance darling Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. The feature sparked a bidding war at the festival, with Fox Searchlight eventually landing the film. But Me and Earl never found its audience at the box office, earning just $7 million. Still, it was one of the best-reviewed films of the festival.